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Average Guy DIY | ||
How to joint compoundHanging drywall on a ceiling is a tough task because of the weight of the drywall boards. Most do-it-yourselfers could find a friend and hang some drywall. The more skilled part of the job is applying joint compound. When mud is applied well, the joint is undetectable once the surface has been painted. After a brief discussion on the proper way to hang drywall, I will discuss my techniques on how to joint compound drywall, or in this case greenboard because this is the ceiling of a bathroom. 
This example is from a home built in Boston near 1900. Over the years there were three ceilings installed: a drop ceiling, a cardboard tile one, and the original plaster and lathe ceiling. They all needed to be removed due to water damage caused by a bathroom from the floor above. After removing all three, I could see a typical framing technique for this area; slats running perpendicular to the joists. There are shims in between the slats and the joists which makes for a nice flat ceiling. I made the measurements for the ceiling light and cut the hole with a keyhole saw. All the other cuts are made with a razor. The razor is used to cut one side of the paper and then the drywall is snapped at that cut. Next the paper on the other side is cut with the razor on the crease made by folding the snapped piece over to make a nice neat edge. To install the drywall, it should be screwed to the slats, making sure that the screws don't rip all the way through. I used a drywall screw gun for this, but there is a bit that attaches to any screw gun called a dimpler. You can use a standard screw gun with a phillips head but this requires a steady trigger finger to set the screw depth just right. A drywall screw gun contains a built in clutch and a sleeve around the bit to adjust the depth of the screw. The slats are positioned 16 inches apart on center (the center of the slats are 16 inches apart). This allows full sheets of 4x8 drywall to be installed without any cutting. The drywall is installed by butting up the short sides and keeping the long tapered edges together. Look at the pictures to see which direction the drywall is hung. The open short side of the drywall board overlaps the slat halfway, so this sheet and the abutting sheet can be screwed to the same slat. Make sure the next row of drywall does not have a joint on the same slat. The best practice is to keep the joints as far apart as possible. Again look at the pictures and see where my butt joints are. Also notice the problem I had fitting my hole around the light fixture electrical box. I broke the drywall, so I had to remove all the loose pieces. This caused a big rip in the paper on the greenboard, but that's nothing additional joint compound won't fix. Speaking of joint compound... |
Tools for the Job |
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